


desideratum

by perennials



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, why do i try
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 17:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6764179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something unattainable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	desideratum

**Author's Note:**

> THE PERENNIALS THING WAS AN ACCIDENT I WAS TRYING OT SEE IF I COULD TRANSFER FIC ACROSS ACCOUNTS LMAO TURNS OUT I COULDNT PLEASE IGNORE IT I WROTE THIS BLASTED THING ALL BY MYSELF THAT IS ALL

“Loves me—”

Someone's head tumbles to the floor, bouncing once, twice, before coming to a standstill. Bright red trickles out of the severed end like a drizzle of rainwater.

“Loves me not—”

Before the next burly, tuxedo-clad man can make a dash for safety a poker card lodges itself in his neck and snaps it neatly in two. It's like playing darts, Hisoka muses, except his target board is three-dimensional and his targets are constantly on the move. Nonetheless, he finds it more entertaining than a conventional game of darts by quite a stretch.

“Loves me—”

There are only two or three bodyguards left in the room, but Hisoka isn’t particularly bothered by that fact. Past experience tells him that there are likely cowards, those that have folded themselves into cabinets like origami cranes or gone to call for help instead of fighting (usually without much success, albeit), and judging from the musical arrangement of frantic shuffling and scuffling he's picking up from the connecting rooms, seeking them out should pose no big problem.

“Loves me not—”

 _Bull's eye, fifty points_. A rose blooms on the silvery white carpet, unfurling petals the color of cheap wine.

 

-

 

By the time Illumi's finished the job at hand (which doesn't take very long, as usual), Hisoka's disposed of thirty-six professional armed bodyguards. The walls are splattered with crimson and there is more pooling in puddles of red by their feet. Amidst the twisted, strangely artistic wreckage Hisoka stands like the centerpiece, bold neon clothing juxtaposed against the black-white-red of the scene.

Despite the fact that he's had the opportunity to toy with far more people than he can usually get his hands on with permission, the smile Hisoka offers Illumi when he exits the main office is a largely dissatisfied one. The differences between his regular irksome smirk and the current one are minute in nature, but Illumi picks them out with fair ease. He makes it a point to avoid any particularly extravagant blood stains as he clears a path across the narrow, blood-slicked hallway.

"Something happened," Illumi observes. It's a statement, not a question.

For the most part he can't really be bothered to care about Hisoka's welfare, but he decides that the shady magician's uncanny display of emotion might be cause for worry this time, seeing how he's rarely outright _bothered_ by anything.

"I was playing— a _game_ ," Hisoka articulates disdainfully, by way of answer.

Illumi is unimpressed. "With yourself."

"Yes. You know, the one where the dainty maiden sits by the windowsill and plucks petals from a flower, going 'loves me, loves me not'," Hisoka elaborates in a drawl, his eyes fixed on Illumi's face as he speaks. "Except I was plucking heads, instead of petals."

Any other person would have definitely recoiled (or, at least shrunk back) from that almost perverse, penetrating gaze. Fortunately, Illumi's hung around him for long enough to have developed a special kind of indifference to his nasty personality. "No, I don't know," he responds in the same cheerfully detached manner, breaking eye contact briefly to examine the back of his pinky finger. There's a fleck of dried blood lodged underneath the nail— he clicks his tongue in faint irritation.

"I had expected to end things on a more positive note," continues Hisoka, as though Illumi hadn't already clearly expressed his disinterest in his choice of subject matter.

Illumi cuts in abruptly. "Odd."

"Mmm?" Hisoka smiles expectantly.

"Why would you place your trust in there being an odd number of guards in the vicinity?"

Eyebrows crinkling ever so slightly, Hisoka's lips turns down at the corners. "I hadn't counted on one getting away."

How very Hisoka-like in that blatantly arrogant carelessness. "Well, that's too bad then," Illumi remarks, not sounding very apologetic at all. He turns on his heel, hair fanning out like a cape behind him, and heads for the elevator. The smart clicking of heels that follows soon after tells him that Hisoka's decided to stick around, for now.

 

-

 

Illumi knows the second the elevator doors slide shut that they will be stuck in here for a while. He doesn't know what to call it— assassin's instinct, perhaps— something that transcends even logical deduction and experience. Whatever it is, it's rarely wrong, if ever.

Predictably enough in its unpredictability, the elevator jolts to a stop halfway down, grinding reluctantly to a stop between the seventeenth floor and the eighteenth. Hisoka has been admiring his reflection in the mirror; Illumi has been watching him circumspectly in case he tries to attempt anything odd. Which was a failure on his part, Illumi concedes, as the bungee gum encasing the elevator like a second skin evidences.

With a great deal of resignation, he folds his arms and leans back against the glass panel. "What is it this time?"

Hisoka hums absentmindedly as he contemplates Illumi's mildly defensive stance and neutral expression. "If I killed you, that would make it an odd number, which would be good, but would the result remain valid if the person in question died?" He wonders aloud, just loud enough for Illumi to catch his words if he strains his ears. And to his own immense irritation Illumi does— strain his ears. The prospect of being offed by Hisoka in some fancy office building elevator is unpleasant, to say the least; conversely the thought of stabbing the magician's eyes out possesses a certain allure that is only accentuated by the situation at hand.

Nevertheless Illumi maintains his generally carefree disposition, the only sign of annoyance being the slight undercurrent of animosity in his voice. Materializing a handful of pins out of thin air and casually angling them towards Hisoka, he asks, pleasantly, "Do you want to die today?"

"Oh, it would be a pleasure to see you try and make me." Hisoka shudders in excitement at this barely-concealed death threat.

"I change my mind," Illumi declares almost immediately.

Hisoka merely chuckles in reply.

 

-

 

Beautiful things don't ask for attention; they shove themselves up in your face and _demand_ it.

This is the one clear thought that Illumi has as he finds himself unwittingly pinned against the wall and trapped in the wrought iron cage of Hisoka's arms some five, ten minutes later. Hypothetically speaking, he _could_ slip free whenever he wanted to (and Hisoka's not trying very hard to keep him in place), it's just that there are other more pressing... matters that require his looking into.

"Loves me, loves me not, loves me—" Hisoka is murmuring now-familiar words against the skin of Illumi's collarbone as he skillfully extracts the pins embedded in his top.

"Fuck off." Illumi clamps his hands around his neck.

"Ooh, death by asphyxiation? Not a bad way to go."

"Oh, get off me," says Illumi.

"Get you off?" Hisoka inquires coyly, a hand slipping down to the curve of his waist, lightning-fast.

"No," Illumi clarifies lightly, " _get off_ _of me_ before I crush your windpipe." He tightens his hold on the honey-eyed magician's exposed neck for emphasis.

To say Illumi is surprised when his nails draw blood would be a major understatement, and yet the largest shock to him still comes from how Hisoka actually lets him dig them in that deep to begin with. An odd sense of wonderment washes over him like cold, cold water as he retracts his hands and admires his bloodied nails with distant fascination. "That was purely unintentional," he adds, almost like an afterthought.

Seeing Illumi as far removed from the current circumstances as he is presently, Hisoka relinquishes his hold on the elevator's movements, but poses to him another question as they resume their descent at a snail's pace. "Would you have preferred there be an even or odd number of guards up there?"

To which Illumi answers with another. "Does it matter to you?"

"No, not particularly," is Hisoka's offhanded reply.

"Then it doesn't matter at all, does it?" Illumi has produced a white handkerchief from one of numerous hidden pockets and begun meticulously cleaning his nails.

"I suppose it does not." Hisoka's eyes do not leave Illumi even once.

 

-

 

Upon exiting the elevator a gun is shoved brusquely into Hisoka's face. The tuxedo-clad man standing before them is wearing a dark, twisted expression like a funeral dress.

Illumi and Hisoka exchange mild glances.

 _Do you want me to—?_ Hisoka can read the hanging question in Illumi's eyes.

His lips curl into a cat-like grin. _Be my guest._

Illumi cocks his head to one side and mulls it over.

Meanwhile their greatly agitated attacker seems to be greatly conflicted about something— though neither knows what exactly that is. Having finally reached a decision of some sort, his face contorts grotesquely through tears as he jams the gun into Hisoka's mouth. "Even if the rest are dead, at least I'm going to finish this job. You're going to fucking—"

In a flash Illumi's needles are out, whistling past Hisoka's ear, and buried in the stranger's neck. The last petal's descent is ugly, ungraceful.

"Loves me," deadpans Illumi to the convoluted corpse. He turns back to Hisoka.

"There, it's odd now."

Hisoka raises an eyebrow.

In the ensuing panic (there _is_ a dead man tarnishing their preciously expensive silk flooring with his awful corpse-smell, after all) Illumi slips easily out of the office lobby.

This time Hisoka does not follow after him.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> their character dynamics fascinate me, unfortunately i do not think i managed to paint quite as nuanced an image of them as i would have liked to. never mind there's always another chance. probably.
> 
> anyway thanks for reading yo. kudos and comments and you my reader friend are cool, but comments are like the coolest of them all  
> i'm on tumblr @ corpsentry if ya ever wanna talk
> 
> have a good one


End file.
